When the British eventually reached the port of Corunna on the northern coast of Galicia in Spain, a few days ahead of the French, they found their transport ships had not arrived.

In early October 1808, following the scandal in Britain over the Convention of Sintra and the recall of the generals Dalrymple, Burrard and Wellesley, Sir John Moore took command of the 30,000-man British force in Portugal.

These institutions interfered with the army and the business of war, undermined the tentative central government taking shape in Madrid,[20] and in some cases proved almost as dangerous to each other as to the French.

[23] While the allies inched forward, a vast consolidation of bodies and bayonets from the far reaches of the French Empire brought 100,000 veterans of the Grande Armée into Spain, led in person by Napoleon and his Marshals.

[42] The retreat of the British, closely followed by their French pursuers, took them through mountainous terrain in dreadful conditions of cold and snow and was marked by exhausting marches, privation, and suffering.

He led the French army 200 miles (320 km) over 10 days by forced marches and in spite of winter blizzard conditions reached Astorga on 1 January with 80,000 men.

Napoleon wrote to his brother Joseph on 31 December: My vanguard is near Astorga; the English are running away as fast as they can... they are abhorred by everybody; they have carried off everything, and then maltreated and beaten the inhabitants.

[46][47][48] When it was clear that he could not bring Moore to battle, Napoleon left the pursuit of the British to Soult's corps with Marshal Ney in support and took the bulk of the army, some 45,000 men, back to Madrid.

[50] On several occasions, the discipline of Moore's army broke down; British troops sacked Benavente on 28 December and hundreds of drunken soldiers were abandoned on 2 January at Bembibre[51][52] and were captured or killed by pursuing French dragoons.

By the 8th Soult was prepared for battle, but Moore, imagining Ney was outflanking him, slipped away that night,[60] shooting 500 foundered horses and destroying artillery caissons and food stores.

[64] Eventually, on 11 January, the British main body reached the port of Corunna in northwest Spain, where they had hoped to find the fleet to take them back to England.

Soult's three infantry divisions, commanded by Pierre Hugues Victoire Merle, Julien Augustin Joseph Mermet and Henri François Delaborde, and his artillery would arrive at Corunna piecemeal over the next few days.

There was also a large quantity of badly needed military stores: 5,000 new muskets were issued to the troops, a vast amount of cartridges for re-equipping, numerous Spanish artillery pieces and plenty of food, shoes and other supplies.

[c] The British then destroyed a portion of the enormous amount of military stores originally intended for the Spanish: nearly 12,000 barrels of powder, 300,000 cartridges in two magazines outside the town and 50 fortress guns and 20 mortars.

[74] Moore had deployed his army to cover the evacuation by placing the main part of it on a ridge astride the road to Corunna, a mile and a half south of the harbour.

A stronger position lay to the south but the British commander considered that he lacked the numbers to defend it properly and had to be content with placing outposts there to slow the approach of the French.

The western and lower end of this ridge was more vulnerable and could be swept by guns on the rocky heights of the loftier range opposite, and the ground further west consisted of more open terrain extending as far as Corunna which might provide the means of turning the whole position.

The light field guns of the French were distributed across the front of their position,[12] however the broken ground, sunken roads and walls limited them to long range support.

For the British, Baird's division formed on the right and Hope's the left, each deploying a brigade en potence with Paget as the reserve at the village Airis.

[80] The fiercest fighting took place in and around Elviña as the possession of this village would change hands several times, and the British suffered particularly from the fire of the heavy artillery on the heights opposite.

Moore remained in this area to direct the battle, ordering the 4th Foot to fire down upon the flank of the second French column that was attempting the turning movement and calling up the reserve under Paget to meet it.

[81] He fell mortally wounded, struck "on the left shoulder, carrying it away with part of the collar-bone, and leaving the arm hanging only by the flesh and muscles above the armpit".

[90] When Soult perceived that the British had left the ridge, he posted six guns on the heights above the southern end of the bay and by midday the French were able to fire upon the outlying ships.

[91][d] The city of Corunna was taken by the French, two Spanish regiments surrendering along with 500 horses and considerable military stores captured including numerous cannon, 20,000 muskets, hundreds of thousands of cartridges and tons of gunpowder.

In his authoritative account of the battle, the English historian Christopher Hibbert states: "It was all very well to talk of the courage and endurance of the troops but of what use were these virtues alone when pitted against the genius of Napoleon?

"[103] The historian Charles Oman contends that Marshal Soult's attack at Corunna provided Moore and his men with the opportunity to redeem their honour and reputation through their defensive victory,[104] by which means the army was saved though at the cost of the British general's life.

[106] Charles Esdaile, in The Peninsular War: A New History, writes: "In military terms, Moore's decision to retreat was therefore probably sensible enough but in other respects it was a disaster ... Having failed to appear in time ... then allowed Madrid to fall without a shot, the British now seemed to be abandoning Spain altogether."

[108] Fremont-Barnes, in The Napoleonic Wars: The Peninsular War 1807–1814, writes that the then British Foreign Secretary Canning: " ... privately condemned Moore's failed campaign in increasingly stronger terms," while in public he " ... in the great British tradition of characterizing defeat as victory, insisted that although Moore's army had been pushed out of Spain his triumph at the battle of Corunna had left 'fresh laurels blooming upon our brows'".

[109] A more charitable view is offered by W. H. Fitchett in How England Saved Europe: "... it is also a dramatic justification of Moore's strategy that he had drawn a hostile force so formidable into a hilly corner of Spain, thus staying its southward rush".

[44] Napier similarly speculates: "The second sweep that [Napoleon] was preparing to make when Sir John Moore's march called off his attention from the south would undoubtedly have put him in possession of the remaining great cities of the Peninsula.